


My Past, Our Present, Our Future

by HookedonCS



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HookedonCS/pseuds/HookedonCS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt for 1,000 follower appreciation fics: daxx04 asked: Killian asks Emma about the bracelet she is no longer wearing (Graham's shoe lace).</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Past, Our Present, Our Future

There were many a trinquet that he had not been able to let go. There were many items that had made their way into his life, and had stayed there from that day on, for one reason or another. Bit by bit, he had shared what each of those items had meant to him, and why they were important. There were other items that didn’t even need that detailed explanation. There was something to the idea of kindred spirit…

Perhaps that was why it had taken him so long to ask her. He knew of the many items that she had carried with her throughout her life, how she’d picked up this and that throughout the years. He knew that she looked at each significant piece of cloth, metal, fiber… in a familiar way, the same as he had. So… what had happened to the one? The one that had always been a visible reminder of some past event in her life. That was why he wondered… Why had one significant object… replaced another? Why, just days after he’d slipped the engagement ring on her finger, had the bracelet made of a bootlace…disappeared from existence?

Killian didn’t know much about the man. He knew that Emma had only known him for a short time, when she had first come to Storybrooke. He knew, even before she had shared with him, that he had wrote on the slate of the woman that he loved. So… what had happened? The question was still there, burning to be asked, to be discussed. What had happened to the piece of fiber, the piece of string, the mere bootlace that had so rarely left the wrist of Emma Swan?

****

Killian twisted his fingers through hers, the feel of the ring accentuated by the significance of what it meant to not only Emma, but to him as well. Chin pointing down, his eyes lifted to take in the scene before him.

The sheriff’s station was empty save the two of them. Her day was coming to a close, and soon they would be on their way home. Soon. But for now, for just a moment longer, they were here, in her element.

Sitting on the edge of her desk with her right beside him, it was easy to shift his eyes down towards the linked hands as she squeezed her fingers tighter around his. But it wasn’t the ring that held his attention. Not really. It was the thought of the tattoo that was placed on her wrist. Engagement ring, buttercup tattoo, and…

But the bootlace-turned-bracelet was not there.

This time, he felt the purse of his lips and the bunch of his eyebrows.

“Emma.” It was right there on the tip of his tongue, but finding the right way to broach the subject wasn’t coming as easily as he had wished.

“What?”

Killian smiled up at her as he watched her detach herself from him and spin around towards the other side of the cluttered desk behind them.

“I noticed,” he started slowly, letting his mind run through possible ways to broach the subject.

The sound behind him was that of Emma shifting the many files that littered her desk and stacking them together.

“Noticed what?” she asked absently.

Another smile, his lips lifting a bit higher this time. “Was it the fact that your left arm was being weighed down by too much, or was it just that, altogether, it was becoming too flashy?”

“What?” It came out as a laugh of confusion.

Killian slipped off his perch, turning around so that he could face her once again. His eyes were drawn first to her own curious gaze. And then they fell over that arm. The engagement ring sat there proudly, the tattoo was just on the other side, hidden, but undeniably there.

“I was wondering what happened to your bracelet, the bootlace, love,” he murmured, his hook lifting in the direction of the spot the lace usually held. “Why did you take it off.” His head involuntarily cocked to the side as he met her eyes once more.

Emma stilled immediately. Her eyes held his as her fingers stayed firmly on the edges of the file, keeping them close to her chest.

“You noticed that, huh?” she asked, flicking her wrist.

“I noticed,” he murmured with a lift of his shoulder. “Just wondered what caused the change. Because it’s been… days now. I don’t think you’ve ever gone days without it.”

Emma’s eyes darted passed him, her head bobbing carefully.

“I guess I would have to go with weighing me down then,” she teased softly.

He hadn’t meant for it to be a conversation starter that would lead into some far off place. Emma’s reaction was one that he should have prepared himself for, that bit of humor. But he hadn’t meant to ask. Not now. Not really. Not out of nowhere as she stood in front of him at her desk, at the end of a work day. But he’d asked her, and if she was willing to share…

“Listen, Killian,” she sighed, her eyes finding his once again. “I had my reasons.”

He just wanted to know what those reasons were. What had… tempted her so. He held the question, waiting and hoping that she would share on her own. Instead, he smiled again, and waited.

Emma took in a deep breath and held in for just a moment before letting it out slowly. The files in her hands dropped with a thump back down on the desk.

“The… past… is… the past.” Each word was careful and thought out before she uttered them. Her hand came up slide over the now naked wrist. “It was… a reminder, of the past.” Her eyes collided with his in an instant. “You know what I mean?”

Narrowing his gaze on hers, a frown creasing his brows, Killian gave a short nod.

“I know what you mean.”

“Of course you know what I mean,” she conceded softly, a glimmer of something light taking over her face.

Killian watched her silently for a moment longer, taking in the woman who he loved, the woman who would one day soon become his wife. The he took a step closer towards her, closing the gap. One step became two, then three, and then…

Emma’s smile was slight, a tremor of her lips as she watched his progress.

“I lost Graham… at a time when I thought I was on solid ground,” she continued, her gaze flickering once again across his face. “When I thought I knew what was reality and what wasn’t. And then all that changed. His… his death came out of nowhere. We were….” This time, her eyes widened and her gaze expanded past him. “Right here when it happened.”

Killian lifted a single brow at that bit of news. “Here in the station?”

Emma nodded her head easily, her lips pressing together in a single line.

The look on her face, he didn’t want to upset her. He didn’t want to take her back to that place where everything hurt. It was exactly why he brought his hand up, fingers curved, and pushed them into her hair right behind her ear. It was supposed to soothe her, but… there was also a calming effect for him as well.

Emma took in another breath, smaller this time. It wasn’t until he turned his attention from his hand slipping through her hair and fully back on her did she open her mouth to speak.

“If things would have been- if things could have been different, then-”

“It could’ve been more than just… caring for him, is that it?” Killian asked, cutting her off in wonderment. And, yes, there was a hint of jealousy that coursed through him in a flash. Jealousy that had no merit, he knew, which was why it flickered away from his eyes as soon as it entered.

Emma nodded her head, and the swallow she took was visible.

“It could’ve been,” she admitted openly. Her eyes blinked over and over, and she dipped her head until she was slipping away from him.

Killian let her go, watched her step around her chair and the way she pushed it into the desk. He watched the firm grip she held onto that chair, her head lowered just slightly.

“Graham was a good man,” Emma murmured quietly to the chair. “His life meant something. To me.” She shook her head this time, a slow shake as she bent over that chair. “There were things that I accepted about myself… because of him. And that’s the reason I kept a part of him with me for as long as I did.” She looked up at him again, her eyes not quite as wide, but wondrous. “To remind myself of the man who believed in me enough to want me to believe in myself, too.”

This time… Killian swallowed hardly, swallowing the lump of emotion that had gathered there in his throat.

“And the reason you no longer needed it?” he asked, thicker than it should have been.

She glanced up at that question, her mouth opening only slightly.

“Wearing the bootlace, and keeping it for so long, was for Graham,” she admitted slowly. “Removing it had a lot more to do with me.” She took a moment, to watch him, fairly closely. “Like I said, Killian, I wore it as a reminder of my past. Those…:” Another pause. Another shake of her head. “Those reasons don’t exist… anymore.”

Perhaps the understanding wasn’t as clear as he’d like, but his mouth turned up in a smile.

Again, Emma sighed, and it was clear that her mind was running.

“The moment you put this ring on my finger, it was clear that all I wanted to do was look at my present and towards my future.” She tilted her head, her eyes squinting on him. “And that is you, Killian. We’re… each other’s happy ending.”

This time, her sigh was like a breath of fresh air, a calmness seemingly settling over her. He knew that feeling because it was the same feeling that was overcoming him.

“That we are love,” he murmured quietly.

Emma’s hands fell away from the chair, her body twisting to get around it.

Killian liked watching the way she moved. It was with a purpose. A purpose that was all about making her way to him, to be with him. He held his arms out for her, loving the way she wrapped her own arms around his neck and hugged her body close to his.

His eyes shut tight, thinking of not only her journey to them, but his own journey to them, The past had not always been kind to either of them. She held mementos of her past, of those who wrote on her slate. He thought about the swan necklace of Neal’s, the bracelet of Graham’s. Then he thought of the tattoo on his own arm, the tattoo for Milah. And… of course he understood. It was with that understanding that his hand ran down to the small of her back, keeping her close to him.

She wasn’t trying to forget; she was tucking away a piece of her past to where it now belonged. And that made sense.

“I’m ready to go home,” Emma told him, nuzzling her nose into the hollow of his neck.

Killian didn’t ask if she was sure. He didn’t dwell on the idea of wanting or needing more of an explanation.

“After a long day, love, I can’t think of anything better that could have fallen from your lips.”

Emma ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. She held there… just a moment longer.

There was a part of him that wasn’t ready to let her go either, content in the moment of being this close and with thoughts of a future with Emma Swan. (Soon to be Emma Jones.) The future…

The past was the past. And wasn’t there so much past between the two of them? 

The future… the future was right in front of them. It was what that ring on her finger signified. It was what the bare wrist signified

The past…

The present…

The future…

“Aye, love, let’s go home.”


End file.
